


To Be Alive

by Unreal_Kitty



Category: Crimson Peak (2015)
Genre: Epilogue, F/M, Ghosts, Implied/Referenced Incest, Loss, Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2017-12-09
Packaged: 2019-02-12 15:22:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12962322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unreal_Kitty/pseuds/Unreal_Kitty
Summary: Three months have passed since Edith stumbled from a cursed house, fighting her way through the snow.Three kinds of ghosts have come and gone, three new paragraphs forming an updated introduction to her novel.As she stares out the window to the snowy Buffalo street, back where it all began, she looks for a familiar pale figure. But despite the distance afforded by three months and an ocean, Edith is unsure if she's looking with fear or with hope.





	To Be Alive

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for the end of Crimson Peak.

_They came to me in three colors._

Black as memory. An open grave. A mother's sorrow.

Red as pain. Endings come too soon.

White as forgiveness, as solace, as relief.

He was a pale rider when I touched his cheek. A pale rider bid farewell.

 

_They came to me in three silences._

The first brought lullabies never again sung.

The others, quiet accusations.

The last, the silence of a stopped heart, a finished heart, for the first time in its life, unbroken.

 

_They came to me in three warnings._

Do not go forward, into the future. She had looked ahead, but the future is unwritten, so the future is black.

Turn away, they said. Get out, go back. But I could not run, so tightly held in red clay.

I will see you again, promised his eyes. One day, one day, we will will meet in another white field. Not all white plains are snow.

\-------------------------------------------------

You would think I'd have had enough of ghosts by now, thought Edith, as she finished the new introduction to her manuscript. But she glanced out the window anyway, as though hoping to catch a glimpse of a white specter amid the Buffalo winter.

Three months had passed since she and Alan stumbled, half-frozen, into the depot. They had struggled through the snow and wind for hours, leaning on each other to remain mostly upright as they escaped from Allerdale Hall.

They were too exhausted to answer questions, and luckily the postal clerk had the sense to send for a doctor, settle them in the spare room, and then leave them be. Edith didn't think she could have survived an interrogation, not then. And what would she have said, anyway?

"My sister-in-law tried to murder me for my money so she could continue her incestuous half-life with my husband, so I bashed her head in with a shovel?"

Now she's a murderess.

“She nearly succeeded, of course, but luckily my mother's ghost warned me when I was a child, so I was already on alert. How did I best her, you say? Well, Lucille had me cornered, but my husband's spirit distracted her long enough for me to get the jump on her.”

Now she's a mad murderess.

Edith had lived under the shadow of madness since childhood. She had long ago learned that telling ghost stories earned her nothing but pitying glances and whispers like daggers in her back. Unless of course, the ghost stories remained safely imprisoned between the pages of a novel.

Even Alan, dear, Alan, had only tolerated her account of her mother's return for so long before gently encouraging her to leave it behind with fear of the dark and branches like fingers stretched over her windowpane and other monsters of childhood.

Now, after all the horror, she suspected he still didn't believe her. He hadn't seen what she had seen in that cursed house, after all. No red women appeared before him, no dead infants bathed in clay. He didn't see the pale figure in white, his eyes the gold of butterfly wings. Even if he had glimpsed or sensed something, the good doctor would likely attribute the visions to bloodloss and hypothermia.

Edith was alone with her ghosts, as she always had been.

The past has a certain rhythm to it, she thought. As a child, Alan wanted nothing more than to drag me to safety and leave the ghosts behind. Now here we are again.

She peeked out once more to the city street, emptier than usual due to the tireless New York snow. Back at the start.

After clay and steel and moth, here she was again, in a grand house in Buffalo, grooming her book to entice a publisher. As a lady of high society grooms her daughter for her first ball.

Edith avoided balls, as a rule. She thought back to that fateful exception. Thomas, like a hero in a novel, like the hero in her novel, implored her to relent. He came all this way, this crosser of oceans, this adventurer-prince. He came all the way from England. He came all the way from out the pages of a novel. He spoke English, not American, and needed a translator. He offered his arm. Why would she stay here, with no one but ghosts for company?

When the couple arrived together, society’s stares fell upon them. Edith was no stranger to those stares, and readied her warrior-tongue to defend herself, as always. But this time, Thomas's warm presence at her side shielded her. That night, she could lay down her arms.

Or so she thought.

Thomas' blue eyes flickered and drew her in. Thomas' strong hands held her close, so she could not escape. Thomas was the flame and the net. Meanwhile, the child who was never a child and never freed from the terror and selfishness of childhood watched, her long fingers curled around the net's shaft.

Lucille wore red, like her victims, like the clay that trapped them all — ghost and brother and sister alike — in an undead house. Her rival was swathed in a paler hue, but Edith's white gown burned bright as a reprieve.

Did Lucille fear, even then, of being outshone?

And was her brother, when he placed the lit candle in Edith's hand, aware that he had tangled himself in his own net?

As she sat by the window, illuminated by ghost-light cast from the Buffalo snow, Edith could feel the weight of a candle in her empty hand. A waltz played upon the wind.

Edith avoided balls, as a rule. But she'd burn her manuscript for just one more waltz with the man in black.

She shook her head abruptly, as though to banish flies buzzing near her face. The daughter of Carter Cushing didn't brood. She was neither victim nor survivor, but a conqueror, and she would not prick her ears for past waltzes or strain her eyes for candles long snuffed.

But you are also the daughter of Elizabeth Cushing, a soft voice reminded her. And Mother would defy death itself for just one more whisper to her beloved.

"I am not a ghost!" shouted Edith, sweeping her manuscript from her desk. It tumbled to the floor, splaying loose pages everywhere. "I'm alive," she said, more softly. "I'm alive," she repeated, but the final syllable betrayed her, flicking upward to suggest a question.

She rose from her chair and sank to the floor, scrambling to wrangle the wild pages. A long-fingered hand brushed against hers as it joined her in gathering together her book.

Edith froze.

She couldn't bear to look. She couldn't bear to look away.

"Edith."

She drew in a breath, and it stuck in her lungs. She wanted to keep her eyes shut tight. But Edith Cushing Sharpe faces discomfort with open eyes.

Slowly, carefully, and with tremendous effort, she allowed her eyes to creep up past dark battered boots. Past a lanky frame clothed in a beautifully-cut suit a decade out of fashion. Past a long, pale neck peeking from a fine, if crumpled vest. Past lips curved a centimeter upwards and lupine cheekbones and a mangled cheek.

Edith's excruciating upward climb finally rested on one blue eye.

Words usually came to her aid rapidly, like loyal dogs. But her breath had still not managed to return.

Thomas glanced down at the pages and raised one dark eyebrow. "It looks like you've made quite a bit of progress." There was a beat.

"Tell me," he started with false nonchalance, his gaze still fixed on the novel. "Does our Mr. Cavendish receive his happy ending?" He grinned a little, impishly.

Edith finally found her voice, though she just managed a whisper. "Thomas. Is that really you?"

His slightly mischievous manner evaporated, and he responded with a furrowed brow and a tenuous, "I.. I don't know." His head dropped as he studied his hands in confusion.

Edith reached out and guided his chin upwards so he'd meet her eyes. Her voice grew stronger, more intent. "Are you really here?"

Thomas smile returned and the world flooded with golden light.

"Does it matter?"


End file.
